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various aldermen for the payment of interest due to contributors to the loan of L100,000, they were ordered to be cancelled.(289) In November the lords of the council wrote to the City for an extension of time for the repayment of the L60,000.(290) (M115) On the 1st May Charles was married by proxy at Paris to Henrietta Maria. When the news of the marriage treaty between England and France reached London in the previous November the citizens showed their joy by bonfires and fireworks.(291) They forgot for a while the danger likely to arise from the heir to the throne allying himself in marriage with a Catholic princess. On her arrival in the Thames in June the citizens gave her a hearty welcome, whilst the fleet, which was about to set sail--few knew whither--fired such a salute as the queen had never heard before.(292) (M116) In the meantime (1 May) Charles had issued his warrant to the lord mayor for levying 1,000 men--"part of 10,000 to be raised by our dear father's gracious purpose, according to the advice of both his Houses of Parliament, in contemplation of the distress and necessity of our dear brother and sister."(293) He thought that if he could only gain a victory it would serve to draw a veil over his delinquencies. The City was to be assisted by the county of Middlesex in raising the men,(294) and an allowance was made for "coat and conduct money" for the soldiers at the rate of eightpence apiece per day for their journey to Plymouth, the place where they were to embark (L400), and four shillings a coat (L200), the pay of a captain being four shillings a day.(295) The mayor's precept to the aldermen to raise the men enjoined them to search all inns, taverns, alehouses, "tabling-houses" and tobacco-houses, and to press, especially, all "tapsters, ostlers, chamberlains, vagrants, idle and suspected persons."(296) By August the condition of the troops at Plymouth was pitiable. No money was forthcoming for wages, and the soldiers were forced to forage for themselves in the neighbouring country. At last the fleet set sail (8 Oct., 1625). Its destination proved to be Cadiz, whither it was despatched in the hope of securing West Indian treasure on its way home. The expedition, however, turned out to be as complete a failure as that under Mansfeld in the previous year. (M117) The citizen soldiers returned to find their city almost deserted owing to the ravages of the plague. In July the sickness had b
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